"K" Slang

ket

General

Rubbish, offal or waste; in County Durham it also means children's sweets.

kettle and hob

Street

Cockney rhyming slang for a watch, from 'fob watch'; usually clipped to 'kettle'.

keuf

General

Used collectively for the police as an institution.

keum

General

From the standard French 'mec' (guy, bloke). Verlan inverts it to 'keum' (also spelled keumeu). It simply means a man or guy.

kevlar

General

The standard ballistic helmet, referred to by the material it is made from; also called a K-pot.

kewl

Internet

Used ironically to flag that the writer thinks something is dorky-cool or old-internet.

key

Street

A kilogram (about 2.2 pounds) of cannabis; bulk/trafficking weight.

keys

General

The man who 'holds the keys' is the gang's admin on a given pod or block — handles discipline, dues, contraband flow, and beefs with rival cars. Above a regular soldier, sometimes under the shot caller, sometimes the same guy. If you've got a problem, you take it to whoever's holding the keys.

keys code

General

Before the hanky code took over, men flagged with their keys. A bunch of keys clipped to the left belt loop or hip said top/active; on the right said bottom/receptive. Same left-right logic the hanky code later inherited. Quiet, deniable, readable across a crowded bar — exactly what you needed in an era when being obvious was risky.

keysmash

Internet

What you type when actual words fail. Slamming the keyboard to show you are too feral, too obsessed, too floored to form a sentence. The chaos itself is the message.

khaki wacky

General

Describing a young woman infatuated with servicemen, swooning over anyone in a khaki uniform.

khakis

General

The single most famous Boston-accent joke in the country. 'Car keys' filtered through a non-rhotic local mouth comes out as 'khakis,' to the eternal confusion of outsiders who think you're asking about pants. Featured in a legendary Tim & Tom Curran sketch and roughly nine million Sully-and-Pauly impressions.

ki charge

Gaming

Pressing all four buttons makes your character flash and pose, and your next attack lands as a guaranteed counter-hit. Stylish, risky, and devastating if you connect.

kia

General

'Killed In Action' — a casualty classification for a service member who died directly from enemy action during combat operations.

kia kaha

General

An encouraging phrase meaning 'be strong', offered as support in tough times.

kia ora

General

A widely used greeting meaning literally 'be well/healthy', used for hello, thanks, or as an expression of agreement.

kick out

General

When a player penetrates, collapses the defense, and passes the ball back out to an open perimeter teammate.

kick rocks

Street

A dismissive instruction to leave or keep moving; 'kicking rocks' is aimless walking of the yard.

kickback

General

A small, relaxed gathering of close friends, more mellow than a full party.

kicker

General

A linear amplifier strapped onto a CB rig to push the signal far beyond the FCC's 4-watt limit. Drivers run kickers to reach further down the interstate or drown out the competition on a busy channel. Highly illegal in the US, widely used anyway. Also called a 'boots' or 'amp.' Get caught and the FCC will write you a fine that hurts.

kickflip

General

An ollie in which the rider uses the front toe to flick the edge of the deck, spinning the board a full rotation along its lengthwise axis before landing back on it. One of the most iconic flip tricks in skating.

kicks

General

A source of enjoyment or a passing enthusiasm one is into.

kicksin

General

To joke, fool around, or make light of something; behaving playfully and not seriously.

kickstand

Street

Slang for a life term; used in some systems for a sentence with no end in sight.

kickturn

General

A skate maneuver where the rider shifts weight to the tail, lifts the front wheels, and pivots the board to a new direction on the back wheels. It is essential for carving transitions and steering.

kid

General

Used to address or refer to a friend regardless of their actual age; being called 'kid' means you're seen as a close pal.

kidda

General

Mate, pal — a friendly term of address, usually bloke-to-bloke. Doesn't actually mean the person is a kid; works on anyone from a teenager to a fifty-year-old at the bar.

kidnapping

Gaming

Dropping Wraith's Dimensional Rift on top of an enemy so they get pulled through the portal and spat out next to your waiting squad — separated from their team and instantly swarmed.

kids

General

In ballroom, a house is a chosen family led by a 'mother' and/or 'father.' The members are the kids — the children of the house. They take the house's name as their surname, walk balls under its banner, build a shared reputation, and don't have to battle each other. It's family in the realest sense: many ballroom kids were rejected by their birth families, and the house is who's left.

kief

Street

The fine powder of trichome glands that sift off cannabis flower, potent and often collected in a grinder chamber.

kief box

Street

A box with fine mesh screens used to sift and collect loose trichome kief from cannabis.

kigurumi

Internet

A costume in which the wearer's whole body, including the head, is hidden inside a character suit; also the popular animal onesie. In anime fandom, the mask-based form is distinguished as animegao kigurumi.

kiki

Pop

A kiki is a low-stakes hang. Friends, laughter, gossip, maybe a bit of friendly competition, none of the pressure of a main ball. In the wider scene 'kiki balls' are the entry-level events where newcomers cut their teeth. Can also just mean cackling and spilling tea on the sofa.

kiki ball

General

A lower-stakes ball, relaxed, friendly, built around community rather than cutthroat competition. The kiki scene mirrors the major balls so newer performers can practice walking categories, take risks and build their craft before stepping up to the mainstream stage. It also carries a serious history of looking after vulnerable queer youth with food, support and HIV resources.

kill

Street

High-grade marijuana. Houston usage — the stuff that smells through the bag and puts you on the couch. Often paired with 'that': 'that kill'.

kill it

General

Cook the meat — usually a steak or burger — all the way through, no pink. Said with the resignation of a line cook who knows what they're about to do to a perfectly good ribeye. Often shouted across the line as a ticket modifier: 'mid-rare, mid, mid-well, kill it.'

kill screen

Gaming

A stage that becomes unplayable because a programming bug or integer overflow corrupts it. The game doesn't crash on purpose, it just hits a number it can't count past and falls apart. The ceiling of the game, basically.

kill secure

Gaming

Grabbing the last hit on a low-health enemy to guarantee the kill rather than gamble it on a teammate landing it. The opposite of 'kill steal' in spirit: a dead enemy is worth more than a polite miss. Pros call it the correct play.

kill the game

General

To net a decisive goal that puts the match beyond the opposition's reach.

killer-diller

General

An exclamation of delight at something tremendous.

killing it

General

Doing extremely well and training hard, crushing your session.

killing part

Internet

The single most memorable and impactful moment of a song, often a hook or dance break that defines it. Fans obsess over who gets the killing part.

killinois

Street

Illinois reimagined through drill's lens — a state defined by its murder rate. Same energy as Chiraq, just zoomed out from the city to the whole map.

kilroy was here

General

The cartoon doodle itself — the peeping bald man — independent of the words.

kimochi

Internet

The Japanese word for 'feeling', frequently heard in anime as 'kimochi ii' ('it feels good') and adopted by fans, sometimes with a suggestive connotation.

kimoi

Internet

A slangy, blunt way to call something or someone disgusting, creepy or gross, common in casual and teen speech in anime.

kind

Street

An older term for premium marijuana, as in 'kind bud' or 'KB.'

kinetic

General

Describes operations or environments involving actual shooting and combat action, as opposed to quiet ones.